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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27356890">And the Fire Bright (Let It Blaze)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf/pseuds/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf'>0hHeyThereBigBadWolf</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftercare, Bottom Arthur, Do Not Re-Post To Another Site, First Time, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Self-Indulgent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:34:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,178</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27356890</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf/pseuds/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins with an argument. </p>
<p>Arthur doesn’t quite remember what he said, if he said anything at all, or if he’d given himself away somehow, except somehow, they are no longer arguing. It isn’t exactly easy to argue with one’s tongue in another’s mouth.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>363</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>And the Fire Bright (Let It Blaze)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It begins with an argument. </p>
<p>In honesty, that ought to have been a sign of what was to come. Arthur always likes arguing with Merlin. It gets his pulse up, having someone who won’t mince words and talk circles around unbecoming subjects, won’t agree with his every word and accede to his opinions of things. He doesn’t even remember what it was about now, but he knows they’d been sniping at one another, back and forth, more for the sake of arguing than anything else. At one point, he’d gotten up from his abandoned lunch to follow Merlin around the chamber, hands on his hips, Merlin had turned to argue right in his face, and his accursed mind had of course taken note of the white line of Merlin’s throat above that stupid scarf, the light flush high in his cheeks, the brightness in his eyes.</p>
<p>Arthur doesn’t quite remember what he said then, if he said anything at all, or if he’d given himself away somehow, except somehow, they are no longer arguing. It isn’t exactly easy to argue with one’s tongue in another’s mouth.</p>
<p>Merlin’s kisses are like him—forward, eager, a bit clumsy but all the more endearing for it. Arthur opens to it helplessly, pulse racing, an embarrassing little noise caught in his throat. He is vividly aware of Merlin’s hands at his waist, warm even through his layers, gently guiding him backwards, matching him step for step. </p>
<p>Crockery rattles as he abruptly meets the table, and his hands drop on reflex to grip the edges behind him, feeling the wood dig in a hard line across the small of his back. It’s only then that he notices, too, that Merlin has wedged a bony knee between his own, using it to nudge his thighs apart. All at once, something in him curls up and <em>squirms.</em> He is a knight, a prince, he is not about to be <em>taken</em> like some woman. Pulling back, he draws in a much-needed breath and tries to reach for sternness. “Merlin, I am not—”</p>
<p>He doesn’t get the chance to finish because something in Merlin’s eyes goes dark, and in one swift, neat motion, he reaches down, curls sure hands beneath his thighs, and lifts him up onto the tabletop, insinuating himself neatly between Arthur’s legs in the same movement. “Yes, you are,” Merlin counters, voice gone husky and thick with a strange accent Arthur has unbelievably never noticed before, and that squirming part of him goes still beneath the words. Merlin slides his hands further down, curling strong fingers behind Arthur’s knees, hitching his legs up more securely around his waist.</p>
<p>Arthur makes a sound he’s never heard from himself before as he feels the unmistakable evidence of arousal pressed into his inner thigh. On some unknown impulse, he tries to press his thighs together and only succeeds in squeezing Merlin’s waist, somehow pulling him in closer. </p>
<p>“Maiden’s mercy, you’ll kill me,” comes Merlin’s rough voice; shivers spread across Arthur’s skin at the damp warmth of breath on his throat. “Come here.”</p>
<p>If anyone had asked him before today if he believed Merlin had the wherewithal to lift him up, never mind <em>carry</em> him, he would have said no. Except that is precisely what Merlin does. Hands braced securely beneath Arthur’s thighs to hold him up, Merlin carries him from the table and into the bedchamber with no visible sign of strain at all, leaving Arthur to grip his shoulders tightly and gasp in a blend of surprise and arousal, legs clutched tight around Merlin’s waist.</p>
<p>Merlin pauses a moment at the bedside before leaning forward to spill Arthur onto the mattress and straightening again. Arthur pushes himself up on his elbows, lower legs hanging off the bed, Merlin standing between his knees, and for a moment, they are caught staring at one another, tension long-building drawn taut between them, knotted red thread twisted bowstring-tight. Then Merlin unties his scarf and tosses it on the bed, pulling his tunic off after it, slinging it aside before pausing again. “I’m not your bloody servant, Pendragon. Take your own clothes off,” he rasps out, working at his belt.</p>
<p>Arthur pushes himself the rest of the way upright, yanking both tunic and undertunic off in one without tangling his arms in them, but then he has to stop because sitting up like this, Merlin’s naked chest and belly are right in front of him, and he’s seen Merlin’s scars before, but he’s never tasted them, an imbalance he feels ought to be corrected. Blunt nails rake along his scalp as he scrapes teeth over the lines of Merlin’s ribs, but when he works his way further down, down to the sharp ridge of a hipbone and the soft hollow of skin beside it, those fingers slide through the back of his hair to his nape, grabbing the cord of his necklace and <em>twisting.</em> Arthur leans back into the pressure, tilting his chin up; Merlin gives the cord one more tug before letting go, leaving it to fall slack around Arthur’s neck again, and lightly swats his knee. “Off,” he says.</p>
<p>Merlin doesn’t move away, however, so Arthur has to scoot further back onto the bed in order to get his boots and breeches off. Under a long, level stare, he squirms out of his smallclothes as well, leaving himself sitting mother-naked on the bed. In the next instant, Merlin is crawling up over him, forcing him to lay back and pressing him down into the sheets. “Arthur,” he rumbles, grabbing at the necklace cord again, twisting it tight and using it as a lead to lift his head.</p>
<p>Arthur groans into the kiss, hooking his legs around Merlin’s hips, and he realises that Merlin, the bastard, is still wearing his own breeches, though they’re at least unlaced, loose lace-ends tickling over his skin. Catching Merlin’s lip with his teeth, he pulls back just enough to look at him without going cross-eyed, feeling the cord bite into his nape. “Off,” he echoes back.</p>
<p>Moving away sends a cool draught over his skin, but it’s well worth the heat in the pit of his belly as Merlin pushes his breeches and smallclothes down, kicking them off, boots and socks already gone. “Have you done this before? With a man?” Merlin prompts, standing there in nothing but his skin, coloured with the odd bruise and the curious patterns of scars, perfect in his imperfections.</p>
<p>“No.” It isn’t a lie. He’s never done this with a man, and the closest he’s ever come to doing this with a woman was when he was fifteen, when he went sneaking out of the castle to a bordello. He’d lost his nerve and bolted from the room before she’d even unlaced her bodice. “Have you?” For some reason, the idea makes that squirming sensation come back, not entirely pleasant.</p>
<p>Merlin leans down, plucks his jacket up from the floor, pulls a small bottle out of his pocket, and throws the garment aside again. The movement of muscle and sinew beneath all that smooth skin makes Arthur half-forget his question when Merlin replies, “No, not exactly.” </p>
<p>When Merlin pries the cork out and starts slicking two fingers with the contents of the bottle, Arthur finally understands what it is, a flush spilling down his neck to his chest. “You just carry that around with you?” he asks.</p>
<p>“You’re the one who always goes on about being prepared,” Merlin drawls back, a grin playing at his lips as he moves back over Arthur.</p>
<p>“I was really talking more about combat situations, not—<em>oh!”</em> His back bows up, toes curling on the sheets, and he hastily claps a hand over his mouth to muffle the noises he’s making, sounds he didn’t even know he could make.</p>
<p>Merlin’s free hand slides over his thigh. “Easy,” he murmurs, like he’s trying to settle a spooked horse. Normally, Arthur would be insulted by the comparison, but Merlin curls his fingers and he forgets how to breathe, groaning against his palm. Merlin reaches up and gently grasps Arthur’s wrist, pulling his hand down. “Arthur, it’s alright. It’s alright,” he says, low and soft. “Easy, love.”</p>
<p>No one has ever called him that, no one’s ever meant it. Arthur twists his wrist in Merlin’s grasp, grabbing at his arm because he has to hold onto <em>something</em> before he breaks.</p>
<p>He is hardly aware of it when Merlin moves in over him, and yet he is aware of nothing else but Merlin’s hips between his thighs, his arms wrapped around Merlin’s back, the slick slide of Merlin’s body into his own. They fit together. They simply <em>fit.</em> Lifting his head, he sinks his teeth into the ridge of Merlin’s shoulder to muffle his voice, crying out as Merlin begins to <em>move</em> then, and he had thought he couldn’t feel anything more, but apparently, he can. He’s never climaxed without his own hand, but he shudders nonetheless, biting down harder on Merlin’s shoulder as he comes. </p>
<p>Merlin groans in his ear, but it isn’t a sound of pain, not at all, and he slides his hands up underneath Arthur’s shoulders to hold him closer, still moving in him and smearing the sticky warmth on their bellies. Arthur’s never continued on after climaxing before, and he hadn’t thought it was possible to even go again afterwards, and yet he can still feel heat pooling in the pit of his belly, a spring slowly being recoiled and tightened. Merlin lays small, biting kisses over his throat and jaw, panting into Arthur’s skin as he moves, slick with sweat.</p>
<p>His nerves feel scraped raw already, but it somehow makes it better, more intense, flickering right on the edge of overwhelming, back and forth over that bright line between pleasure and not. “Oh, God, I-I can’t, I <em>can’t,”</em> Arthur chokes out, digging his nails into Merlin’s back, eyes screwed tight shut. He can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t move, can’t… “Merlin, <em>please.”</em></p>
<p>With a groan, Merlin sinks down into another kiss, changing the angle of his hips, moving into him faster, harder, winding that white-hot spring unbearably tight. When it finally snaps, bursting free in a rush so powerful it renders the world in glittering darkness for a span of heartbeats, Arthur arches up to him and sobs as he comes apart beneath the onslaught, shaking; Merlin hangs his head low with a deep groan, hips coming to a stuttering halt, spilling out heat inside.</p>
<p>Lying beneath him, Arthur trembles and tries to catch his breath, staring up at his bed canopy as his vision clears, pulse gradually coming down again. There’s a strange hitch in his breathing that he doesn’t recognise until Merlin gently kisses his temples, the corner of his eyes, and he realises that he’s crying.</p>
<p>“Are you alright?” Merlin murmurs, giving him a kiss that tastes of salt.</p>
<p>Arthur reaches for his voice and finds nothing, so he nods instead.</p>
<p>“Arthur.” It’s all Merlin says, dropping a shower of gentle kisses over his face, hands still braced under his shoulders and thumbs stroking his skin. It helps bring him back to himself, calming the tremors running through his frame. Arthur can’t help the soft whimper he gives when Merlin withdraws from him, sitting up. “I’m not going anywhere. Stay there.”</p>
<p>He couldn’t move if he tried, so he stays there.</p>
<p>The bed shifts as Merlin rises, but a moment later, it shifts again with his return, sitting beside him. Arthur looks up through his lashes, watching in a sort of daze as Merlin runs a damp cloth across his belly and thighs with gentle thoroughness. “Is it always like this?” he asks, finding his voice at last.</p>
<p>Merlin’s gaze shifts to his face, his eyes so dark the blue is almost black. “It can be. With the right person.” Turning, he throws the cloth in the direction of the basket. “Come on. Up. I’ve wanted to sleep on these pillows for months,” he coaxes, gently pushing at Arthur, who finally realises that they’ve been lying sideways on the bed the entire time.</p>
<p>He doesn’t quite manage to sit up, but he rolls over onto his side and sort of pulls himself across the bed, dropping to the pillows with a huff. Merlin tugs the rumpled blanket out from under him, casts it down to the foot of the bed, and slides in beside him, tugging the sheets over them instead. He still feels as though his body has come unhinged at the joints, liquid in his own skin, but it doesn’t feel like weakness, only warm languor. Groping about under the sheets, he finds one of Merlin’s hands with his own, twisting their fingers together. </p>
<p>“Merlin,” he murmurs, feeling the grey edge of sleep drawing at him. “Will it always be like this between us?”</p>
<p>“It can. If you like.” Merlin’s thumb strokes the back of his hand, calluses in different places from the different work they do. </p>
<p>“I would.”</p>
<p>“Will you stay?”</p>
<p>“If you like.”</p>
<p>“I would.”</p>
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